X fans will agree that “Blue Blood” is a legendary album but the sound is not very good. I saw that many fans are bummed out because the guitar sounded very dull and the drums sounded like cans. Of course, X members would have perceived the problem seriously more than anyone. And this sound problem was solved in their next album “Jealousy”. I listened to the X Japan podcast ep.18, and learned that X members met the engineer “Rich Breen” in LA . And they were very pleased with the results of his work. Apparently, Yoshiki has done all the album work with the engineer since then.
http://dogmaticsound.com/?page_id=106ㄴ Here is Rich Breen’s discography. You can see his works with X/X Japan.
Afterwards, I read an interview and found out that the person who liaised Rich Breen was Taiji. The more I learn about X Japan, the more I realize how much Taiji has contributed to this band.
Here is the interview.
http://blueverse.at.webry.info/201708/article_30.html1991.6月号 PATi PATi ROCK'N'ROLL Vol.48
Taiji interview at LA on April 12, 1991 (interviewer : 森内淳)
- By the way, it seems that you have found an engineer.
Taiji : It was Manowar(heavy metal band)’s new album that I borrowed from my friend. Listening to it, I felt intuitively that he was the engineer for X. Since X used a lot of sound, it was a challenge to isolate the sound and let it be heard separately. After having made “Blue Blood”, I was suffering with it all the time. “Why does the sound cling to one?” I thought it’s better to spread the sound. And someone called Rich Breen could do it. “Manowar” themselves use quite a lot of sounds. I thought that is similar to X. He(Rich Breen) runs an orchestra, Windham Hill Records or something like that. He belongs to a different sphere from ours.
- How was it when you worked with him?
Taiji : It was a great combination. He has an awesome personality. Above all things, he is not a work-oriented person and has a good sense.
---そういえば，エンジニアの人はタイジさんが見つけてきたそうですね．
TAIJI：
たまたま友達から貸してもらったCDがね，マノウォーの新譜だったんですよ．それを聴いてみたら，なんか直観的に，この人，Xにあうんじゃないかなって．音，凄く使うでしょ，Xって．それをいかに分離してね，聴かせられるかっていうところですよね．『ブルー・ブラッド』を作った後ってずっとそれで悩んでたのね．なんでこう音がひとつに固まるっていうか，そうなっちゃうんだろうなって．音がもっと広がった方がいのになあって思ってて．それをリッチっていう人はやれてたから．マノウォー自体，結構，いろいろと音を使うんですよ．それがXにあうんじゃないかなって．あの人はオーケストラだって，ウィンダムヒルか，そういうものも手がけている人で．全然，畑が違う人なんですよ．
---実際，一緒にやってみてどうでしたか．
TAIJI：
大正解でしたね．性格も凄い合うし，第一，仕事内容がかたよった人ではなく凄くセンスがいいですからね．
